Writers of the Future, v. 36, edited by David Farland

Every year, the Writers of the Future anthology produces a volume of stories selected to entertain.  It's surprising the number of quality works they comb out of the slush. Each tale has something that strongly recommends it. A writer could do worse than studying the successes found here:

• devastating climaxes
• heartbreaks
• wild speculations
• philosophical examinations
• bold world-building
• enticing hooks
• an unusual take on a saying or something else we take for granted
• an unusual take on a trope
• ponderings on the past, present of future 

Clearly, a writer doesn't have to pack everything inside to perfection. But the story does have to do something well. The writers here unveil their talent like a colorful peacock's tail and assure us that all may go well for the future health of the speculative genres.

The reviews here speculate a bit on what the anthology is looking for--variety. So maybe if you think vampire stories will be glutting the market, now's not the time to send yours. But apart from anthology calls, there's no way to know what the editors will be reading.

I have no idea which writer will win the Golden Pen. I don't always agree with their choices as to which should have won. My favorite was sometimes one that took second or third. This time I don't have a clear favorite as all do something worth studying and emulating. Each has something that made me jealous of their accomplishment. I raise a glass to toast all the authors.

For writers out there, it may require not one anthology but multiple to pick up on the story types they're looking for. I do notice that sometimes stories that appear a year or two later have something to do with stories in a previous anthology--perhaps commenting on or supplying a new talk on a similar speculation. 

Another thing that just struck me is reading not just the Golden Pen stories (or quarterly winners), but also the stories opening the anthology. Even though it may not be what the judges or even the editor thought was the best, the editor is trying to grab readers with that one. 

Conversely, read all the final stories. Think the opposite. Maybe everyone's trying to write the story that appears first. What does the editor want the readers to leave with?

As a whole, the anthology stands toe to toe or even surpasses current professional magazines although it doesn't often supply the best that genre produced that year although it sometimes does. 

Here are the links to comments about specific stories, in the order that they appeared in the anthology:

1. "The Trade" by C. Winspear
2. "Foundations" by Michael Gardner
3. "A Word That Means Everything" by Andy Dibble
4. "Borrowed Glory" by L. Ron Hubbard
5. "Catching my Death" by J. L. George
6. "A Prize in Every Box" by F. J. Bergmann
7. "Yellow and Pink" by Leah Ning
8. "The Phoenix's Peace" by Jody Lynn Nye
9. "Educational Tapes" by Katie Livingston
10. "Trading Ghosts" by David A. Elsensohn 
11. "Stolen Sky" by Storm Humbert
12. "The Winds of Harmattan" by Nnedi Okorafor
13. 
    

 

Writers of the Future is offering a preorder special on volume 37.

Shotgun Lullabies by Sheree Renée Thomas [part 1]

The voice driving the stories and poems of Sheree Renée Thomas does have a lullaby quality, sung through the mouth of a shotgun--explosive and melodic, it pleases even as it bites:

In the beginning God walked barefoot ’cross the land. She spread Her big toe wide ’cross the rich, deep earth and danced. She stomped so hard with Her rockbottom feet, the earth split right open. Still She danced. Her big toe sunk deep, and the sweet waters rise quick, quick. That’s how we got the rivers, and the lakes, and the creeks.

Thomas often uses dialect as once was popularized by nineteenth-century American writers like Mark Twain but fell into disfavor by the next generation that saw it as a gimmick or cheaply sensational. Here, though, it's digging into the music of the voice, listening to the native language of speakers--sonorous and sensuous. 

A powerful draw to this chapbook is Thomas's voice. It seduces and mesmerizes. It speaks from the fundament of images, sound, and earth.

As you can see by the above sample, Thomas is interested in not just sound and voice but also myth--the larger than life, tall tales that aren't so tall that you might wonder, "Maybe?" They often crawl into the space between realism and speculative fiction. The narratives are less stories than myths where the mythic figure emerges, say [Sukie Diamond, for instance], unscathed through the Antebellum South where the world and the people she encounters are shaped by her being there.

Listen to a reading of Thomas's center story, "Malaika Descending," here.

If you haven't anything by Thomas yet, this is a great place to start. Mildred meets with the neighborhood, some weeks after her "Aunt Malaika" had passed. Her memory isn't a pleasant one altohugh the "aunt" raised Mildred. Somehow Mildred makes a trip to Hell and find Malaika there. It's a dark tale but, nonetheless, full of hope--even for a life after life. This isn't high-octane invention, but suggestive and moving. Well worth your time to check out.

"The Winds of Harmattan" by Nnedi Okorafor

First appeared in Nalo Hopkinson's Mojo: Conjure Stories. Reprinted by David Farland.

Nalo Hopkinson's anthology was about personal magic, using it to alter fate, which she described as "tricky, powerful, and often dangerous." Nnedi Okorafor's offering repays careful reading. It's trickier than its simple appearance.

Asuquo, the protagonist, is an alluring young woman, but she has the undesirable "seven glistening locks of dada hair" which made her a child of Mami Wata, the water deity who would come to collect and thought to be barren. Worse, she can fly. Her husband ties her down to keep her from flying away. She will become a legend, but even that will be rewritten.

What's wonderful here is the challenge it presents. It seems a typical feminist tale, but there are things that it accepts, rejects, or doesn't question, that should leave everyone uncomfortable, no matter what the perspective, which is exactly what Asuquo represents within her village--something that cannot be tamed or forced into a box. Any particular reading will have to ignore some details in order to make a case for forwarding a particular agenda. It has all sorts of barbs that makes it "tricky, powerful, and often dangerous."

"Trading Ghosts" by David A. Elsensohn

Appeared in Writers of the Future 36, edited by David Farland.

A colony miner tries to drink his blues away.in the Ninth Novena diner of Glief b where one can see many "ghosts"--whatever they are. The miner finally explains what has got him in a funk: the loss of his partner in an airlock accident. He meets up with an angel or ghost who wants to end it all.

Comment with some spoilery bits:

Some great scenes, some great speculation, and a good close, but somehow my mind wandered. It took a bit to bite into what was dragging it off.

It opens in a miner's diner, drowning sorrows in tumblers. Since we don't know why, it's hard to sympathize. Maybe pity. Once we learn, it's clear. Probably the opening should be moved to chronological order. Of course, that would mean developing the ghosts and characters in the second scene, but that should only enhance the work.

In one scene, a character said he didn't know why he was doing something. This is a signal from the subconscious to explore this to enrich the text. The title says where it's headed, but a little more character enlightenment wouldn't hurt. It is part of what should drive a scene--not necessarily knowledge but sifting knowledge to move toward a goal. Perhaps the initial story summary hints at this.

The speculation is a far richer vein than a story can tap into. It suggesta a vast culture. Perhaps a novel awaits within.

Exploring Elsensohn's work, I read his Every Day Fiction piece, which shows 1) how far he's advanced in a short period, and 2) his willingness to put characters through the wringer. This should bode well for his career as a writer. 

You can find some of his work here.

Rhysling Awards (short and long poems of note)

Another Rhysling anthology in the books. Votes are being tallied. 

Here are my selection of the notable. I usually pick about ten percent, but I read more quickly, so seven percent this time. 

As usual for the past decade or so, the majority (60-odd %) of nominees were women. Of these, I selected fifty-fifty men and women, without paying attention to the author's gender until I got here. In fact, I had no idea of gender, race, name, etc. until I reached the end of the poem. Maybe not then. [ETA: Voting complete. See results at link. Presumably 83% female.]

As far as magazines go, New Myths, Polu Texni, Star*Line, and Strange Horizons are not strangers to publishing good work. Speculative North is a new magazine to place on your radar, albeit Canadian. Of course, who knows how the poems were selected, but there were some good candidates.

Short:

“Sealskin Reclaimed” • Alison Bainbridge • Glitchwords 2

• What's powerful here is the well used space--very conscious of words and packing so much into a small space. A quality often strangely lacking. Beautiful close.

“a siren whispered in my ear one night” • Ashley Bao • Arsenika 7

• Sound and repetition conscious. Particularly surprising and thought-provoking was "where to place my feet to avoid glass-infested blood."

“Chrono-Man” • F. J. Bergmann • Polu Texni, May 11

• Bonus: word play and passage to various time tropes.

“The Edge of Galaxy NGC 4013” • Warren Brown • Speculative North 3

• A traditional but moving leap.

“He Sold What He Had Left” • Diane Callahan • Speculative North 1

• Interesting wrap where a prisoner goes on a hallucinogenic journey, beginning where he ends.

“Back Story” • David Clink • Strange Horizons, 12 September 2020

• Self-referential. A closing that doesn't close but opens up.

“The Forest in the Full of the Moon” • Geoffrey A. Landis • New Myths, December

• Myth exploration that ends on a note of mystery.

“A Tempest” • Sheree Renée Thomas • Star*Line 43.4

• Thomas plumbs the Shakespearean oeuvre. A plaintive note of longing.

Long:

“The Third Sister” • Andrea Blythe • Twelve (Interstellar Flight Press)

• A love song to readers, libraries and books--how they shape us.

“Devilish Incarnations” • Bruce Boston • Star*Line 43.1

• I expected and got a good poem. I didn't expect the poem to haunt me after reading it. 

“An Offering” • Michael Janairo • Line of Advance (2020 Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Awards)

• Evocative writing about what may be a spiritual or hallucinatory experience.

“Robo sapiens Thinks He Thinks” • Geoffrey A. Landis • Eye To The Telescope 35

• This one smacks the reader with a powerful speculative conceit, which strikes to the core of SF. You'd think more poems would aim more for this tenor.  

"Stolen Sky" by Storm Humbert

Appeared in Writers of the Future 36, edited by David Farland.

A yelvani witnesses the sunsets of other planets on the mezzanine on Earth-Vega. Whichever alien is performing that night seems to get a sky designed to mimick its homeworld. The yelvani goes to interview each alien giving a performance.

Comment with some spoilery bits:

The story draws some of its resonance off what may be Margaret St. Clair's most famous story "Brightness Falls from the Air" (also discussed here). Both mine similar territory.

It might be useful to compare to see where the classic succeeds. In that one, we have a protagonist who has something to learn. Here, the protagonist has something to learn, but not about herself. As the above description suggests, she doesn't have goals. Since it isn't her planet, that they don't capture her sky isn't the real problem. One could say that it is a symbol of the real problem. 

The real problem is that her home world has been taken over. Maybe she's okay with this. Maybe she's cool with living with alien species. She seems attracted to the human aliens, too. But the real problem is not having an identity in herself or in her people. Perhaps she enjoys a mix or prefers the human culture, but she'd still have her own identity. What drew her to this planet? What drew her to interview the aliens? What drew to being attracted to humans? She sounds like an ex-pat--as such, she'd feel like an outsider to all cultures yet be fascinated by them all. We just need to see more of her and her passion, whatever that may be. 

Incidentally, sunsets will be affected by a number of factors: gravity (which dictates how much and how thick the atmosphere is there), air composition (which dictates how light gets bent and absorbed) and objects floating in the air (like clouds which may be lit and/or bend light as well. That humans are unable to correctly simulate sunsets means that they are not a super-advanced civilization. Given the above elements, it would require a major planetary overhaul that couldn't happen overnight--certainly not without disturbing the inhabitants, so the sky likely a simulation--a local light show--so the sky becomes less of an actual problem.

The story has imaginative strength, resonance, and, given the set-up, a good punch in the end. Storm Humbert's work has appeared in Apex and Interzone (see website for links).

Politicizing What Doesn't Need Politicizing

I once advocated for more politics in the arts--to create conversations, not to advocate one political party over another. But in the last decade or so, the arts barbed with politics have sown the field, choking out anything else.

Janice Pariat penned "Decolonising creative writing: It’s about not conforming to techniques of the western canon[.] The universal rules of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ writing are turning out to be colonial relics." 

The article proves nothing that the title and subtitle claim simply because they cannot. Experienced writers help writers by creating rules to guide one's writing--rules that seem to help most stories. The Iowa Writer's Workshop came up with rules that seemed to work. They produced a number of writers who attained some success, which drew more writers to their workshop. They have their pick, so they get to keep the cream. If their rules failed, they wouldn't have attained their success and notoriety.

They aren't the only ones to come up with rules. SF has had a number of rules come out of workshops, perhaps most famously the Turkey City Lexicon. There are rules that popular writers have come up with, by studying bestsellers.

What Janice is rebelling against is the very nature of rules, especially in writing. She's hardly the first. W. Somerset Maugham wrote:

"There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." 

As far as Turkey City goes, no doubt a few novels that use "plot coupons" turned out excellent specimens. Perhaps they'd have been better if they had not.

Kate Wilhelm advised against "their eyes fell to the floor" literalizing it, but really it's a standard narrative convention and would only be misunderstood if we were in story where such a thing could happen. 

Theodore Sturgeon critiqued the literary quality of his most famous short story, "Microcosmic God." Was he wrong? No, he'd have probably been eviscerated in certain workshops, but the story remains one of his most enduring. To have been literary, it would have needed to have been written differently, and he'd have wound up elsewhere, not writing the same story. Could it have been written better? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

The rules aren't rules but guidelines to refer to if something's not working. That is a legitimate criticism leveled against workshops. They pound out anything that doesn't look like what they've been told to recognize, so they use the rules to smash. "This is a plot coupon!" "This character is cardboard!" This is a failure of critics and workshoppers. 

First, read the story. If it fails, then apply the rules where it's broken. Don't plaster up limbs that aren't broken. The Hippocratic Oath advises us to do no harm.

Then again, maybe they have a point. You have to evaluate what you've been told with what you've done. Some writers and poets have to persist in what they're doing before they're recognized. Kay Ryan, for instance.

Rules stultify experiment and sometimes writers' unique voices, but they are good guidelines. Do you have to write 3D characters? No, but it's a good idea. Do you have to write interesting, escalating plots? No, but it's a good idea. Do you have to write strong, evocative sentences? No, but it's a good idea.  

Also, different genres have different protocols--some emphasizing one element over another. Rules that help in one field may not work in another, and you might be trapped in a workshop where you aren't writing what other writers are reading and writing. If you don't want to do what they're doing, get out. It's no conspiracy. They may feel assured that they are helping you. Exit with grace. Look for your people elsewhere.

"Educational Tapes" by Katie Livingston (edited / expanded)

First appeared in Writers of the Future 36, edited by David Farland.

Told in an adventuresome second person, this dystopian tale presents a speaker advising? reeducating? training? another on navigating its world through "educational tapes."

Comment with some spoilery bits:

This is a pleasant surprise to find an experimental piece in Writers of the Future. In the past the anthology series has been staunchly traditional. 

What makes it experimental are a number of factors:

1. The nonfiction voice--told mostly in an informational tone
2. The protagonist (or "you"), often considered a problematic choice (see below)
3. The speaker. Who is it? A group or individual? Do we trust them or not?

Factors two and three make the process of uncovering fun. What this method is, gets revealed toward the end, which suggests the "why" to an extent. This was well executed although it means you have to read it at least twice (or thrice).

The "you" is a problematic choice [in general, not necessarily here] because readers don't know to whom it refers. 1) the speaker? 2) the listener? 3) an actual character who is being spoken to, or 4) some abstract everyman. In poetry this works well, probably because the spaces are much shorter, the readers more willing to bridge gaps, and the lack of their expecting narrative. One can maintain one or all possibilities at once. In fiction, we have characters that we expect to be filled out. As the character fills, the less likely all options can be maintained. "Okay," the reader says, "I know this character isn't me because..._____," etc.

The educational tapes add another layer to the puzzle. When and where does this take place? In the past when tapes were a commonly used technology? In the present or alternate present but in a technologically retrograde country? In the future scrabbling to reacquire technology? In the future but with some new technological sense of "tapes"? I don't think this gets answered although I may be wrong.

For my mileage (yours may vary), the experience could have been a wee bit more immersive in terms of storytelling (factor one)--what John Gardner called the fictional dream, vivid and continuous. I wouldn't insist on the continuous as the narrative voice here is essential and you wouldn't want to spoil that. Judith Slater's story collection, The Baby Can Sing, I thought did a good job at this.

Despite the numbering of tapes, there's little sense of order or progress, apart from the reader's gradual understanding. Since narrative necessarily prolongs the telling, maybe that was why the author kept it minimal. It might have grown too long. However, this seems to beg to be a novella. 

With any experiment--speaking as one who likes reading and writing experimental fiction--it's better not to hide everything. Make it feel like you've shown your hand. See Kazuo Ishiguro as an example although you could point to Samuel Beckett as a counter-example.

I'm not sure that the story answers all the questions it raises. For example, despite resolving the "you" issue quite well, I'm still not sure if the speaker is reliable. The story may answer all questions. I may need to reread it a few more times to know (I wasn't sure at first that it answered factors two and three above, but it did). That it invites such interrogation makes it worthy of inclusion and rereading. I may or may not report back later. A toast to the author. Well and subtly done. 

~Top 10% of the Dwarf Stars anthology

Scifaikuest and Star*Line had the most nominees and best work (three each). Although the nominees favor women once again, my choices for the first time leaned toward men. I may not have selected these poets as having written the best poems in the previous years.

My top five poems out of fifty-odd were (in order of appearance, not rank)

• "[lonely robot]" • Noel Sloboda • Scifaikuest print, February  -- (not available online) -- moving 
• "Phoenix" Colleen Anderson • Yellow Arrow Publishing V:3 Re(Formation) -- (not available online) -- self destruction and renewal
• [shapeshifter] • Ngo Binh Anh Khoa • Scifaikuest print, November -- (not available online) -- how the shapeshifter feels
• "[springtime on Pluto]" • David C. Kopaska-Merkel • Scifaikuest online, May -- well captured SF moment
• "[t)here]" • LeRoy Gorman • Star*Line, 43.2 -- good ee cummings play

Also check out these poems:

• "[every lover]" • Christina Sng • Scifaikuest print, February -- (not available online) -- moving, albeit a bit odd in what it asks the reader to sympathize with 
• "Surreal Agenda" • Bruce Boston • Star*Line 43.1

The Ship Who Won by Anne McCaffrey and Jody Lynn Nye

The story that Anne McCaffrey wrote which spawned this series is discussed here: "The Ship Who Sang"

Carialle, a ship driven driven by the mind of a human who had once been disabled, and Keff, her inhabitant, arrive at a planet of furry beings, which are controlled by powerful sorcerers, which possess teleportation and telekinesis powerful enough to trap the ship upon the planet.

Mages float on thrones where they can combat one another, killing to get new secrets and magical possessions. Carielle helps Keff navigate attempts to take his life and grip on reality. Together the pair have to uncover the secret of sorcerers' power in order to thwart or "unseat," so to speak, the planet's strange rulers.

A fun addition to the series.

Jody Lynn Nye published a solo sequel, The Ship Errant.

Note: The images subtly or not so subtly illustrate various aspects of the tale.

"Common Scents" by Jody Lynn Nye

 Appeared in Unidentified Funny Objects 6. 

Dena Malone, an investigative partner with the muscular Ramos, keeps a wrist bangle that speaks for the alien symbiote in her peritoneum, Dr. K't'ank. The alien is a "straight man" and laughs at jokes at its own expense.

A body is found, reeking. Only Dr. K't'ank appreciates it. It turns out that scents are the bottom of it--playing off aromatherapy, raising it to a science.  

A solid science fiction mystery, which delivers puns and reworking standards for this particular universe she's created. 

"The Phoenix's Peace" by Jody Lynn Nye

 First appeared in Writers of the Future 36, edited by David Farland.

What happens when you cross George R. R. Martin's famed Game of Thrones series with Mercedes Lackey (and other writers born out of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress series)? This tale.

Long ago, the priestess Thonia with the Phoenix of Dembia created peace and trade until she and the phoenix lay down and burned up in flames, leaving only an egg. Now, despite viewing many rituals, Melana, one of the sacred band of Protectors of the Egg, has not seen anything happen in her lifetime. Only if peace is threatened did the egg hatch. Usually, her band protected only one egg, but now there are two. And, of course, the peace will break, and so too will the eggs break open. 

This feels like it could be part of something larger--a novel, perhaps. The pacing luxuriates in its world-creation (and yes, the characters, being essential beings in this milieu, are as much world-building as character-building. The tension is subtle and slow-burning (based on love in a manner I can't recall seeing--fascinating).

One suspects that this story may have been written to fill a gap missing from this collection of tales--that of a world-building nature, pitting one fantasy culture against another. Writers of the Future contestants, take heed? 

Jody Lynn Nye has collaborated with Anne McCaffrey and Robert Lynn Asprin on several novels, and her solo novels include have the Mythology, the View from the Imperium and the Taylor's Ark series.

"Yellow and Pink" by Leah Ning

First appeared in Writers of the Future 36, edited by David Farland.

Nathan Reed keeps killing a man to reset, to be with his wife, Holly, again. Each time he does, she dies again.

Comment with some spoilery bits:

Ning has a great speculative conceptual framework here. Also, more powerfully, she develops an emotionally potent climax. 

Perhaps it seems small, but the justification of events--why do these events occur in speculative terms (some sort of time travel, involving magic or science)--may be what prevents the opening from being intriguing (one man killing another) and a denouement that doesn't quite sing although it has some resonance.

But once the story kicks in, it will rev you to its conclusion.

Ning's work has appeared in Pod Castle, Cosmass Infinities, and elsewhere.